A Reflection on Theological Approach

A: "Is God the most powerful being?"
B: "Yes."
A: "Is it more powerful to take control of everything or relinquish control of some things?"
B: "To take control of everything."
A: "Then God takes control of everything."

The previous dialog displays a chain of thought that leads people to inaccurate theological understandings. We often carve for ourselves measuring sticks out of our own concepts of such attributes as power, glory, and might, to compare statements about God against. We will easily admit that God is the most powerful being, while just as easily assuming that our own current perception of "powerful" is complete and accurate. We overlook that we are assuming we have an infallible concept of attributes such as "power" and "glory." I am not yet convinced that " goodness" can be far removed from "truth," but I am, however, convinced that attributes such as "glorious," "powerful," and "mighty" are secondary to "truth" in the same way that "bright" and "warmth" are secondary to "light". We may have only a fuzzy understanding of what warmth is as nomads in an arctic climate, and would therefore be grossly mistaken if we were to measure what the sun was according to our understanding of the warmth of mittens or the brightness of a flame.

I believe it is more accurate to begin from a question of "is such a proposition the truest to associate with God" than from that of "is such a proposition the most glorious to a associate with God."

I do not, therefore, assume our current perception of "truth" is infallible, but I do think that we assume less that we have a complete and accurate understanding of it, and therefore take more care in examining how and why we approve a statement as true or not. We use many things when weighing a statement for its truth. For example: our current understanding of other things, our relationships and other experiences, and the relationships and experiences of others as heard or documented. We work at resolving our understanding of truth (changing and hopefully increasing it) by examining many things. It probably doesn't always happen, but I think too often, we leave our current concepts of power, glory, and might unchallenged - accepting the default posture of "our parents" (i.e. the present world age).

I'm sure Jesus would've made the best official ruler Isreal had ever seen to date, but that didn't stop Him from eluding them every time they tryed to make Him king. Those guys had no concept of the type of power He came to display.

Law is the Expression of Character

This is a thought that makes sense of some things I am seeing at the moment. I would apply this proposition to both the natural and judicial ways in which we use the word "law." "Natural Law," referring to the ways that we humans describe the consistency of the way we observe our world to work, and "Judicial Law," referring to the ways that we humans decide what consistent results will follow an action.

When something is consistently occurring, it is because someone is choosing consistently.

That might sound like a stretch with how we think about natural laws (that would be a fun discussion), but I'm mostly intrigued now with how we think about things like Wisdom and Truth.

Think about how we use the word "wisdom." If someone is wise, or if someone chooses wisely for example. What do we mean? We mean something like "a type of choice" or "a way of choosing" that is wise. Perhaps both based upon the way something is done and that things that result. Jesus is quoted by Matthew of saying "...wisdom is justified of her children." (KJV) "...wisdom is vindicated by her deeds." (NAS) That speaks to how someone might know that something is wise because of what results. The author of the book of Proverbs has much to say about "wisdom" and often personifies it. I'm not trying to be romantic, I actually think that it might be more accurate to model these concepts as expressions of someone's character. The mind bender here comes into play when we are considering what effects the mind of God have on matter, energy, and time. If John is right in saying, "and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being." (-John 1:3) regarding the person Jesus ("the Word became flesh" -John 1:14), then it can't be all that much of a stretch to think about those things [matter, energy, and time] as maintaining some connection to that someone who created them.

This would probably take a while to unpack, but I think what I'd like to put on the table for chewing on is that: when someone "follows wisdom," they are actually acting in accordance with someone else's character - someone who defines and dictates what is "wise."